A father begs to be reunited with his children

Sri Black first saw Sarah Samaki in a crisis centre in Bali. The Indonesian volunteer social worker noticed the little girl with a woman she assumed was the child's mother.

"She was a little naughty. The woman raised her hand and Sarah flinched and hid under the table," she recalls.

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Ms Black, 22, later checked on the four-year-old and her brother Haries, 7, and was aghast to find them living in a gambling den in Bali's red-light district in the care of a couple to whom they were not related.

Prostitutes frequented the house. Sarah was forced to drink alcohol to make her sleep.

It was the culmination of a tragedy that has engulfed the Indonesian-born children since their mother, Endang, was killed by injuries received in the Bali bombing last October.

Sarah and Haries, born to an Indonesian mother and Iranian father, are the victims of an appalling set of circumstances that has resulted in both parents being torn from them.

The children's father, Mohamad Ebrahim Samaki, an Iranian national, has been in detention in Australia since arriving illegally in 2001. His wife, who had remained in East Java, was in Bali seeking legal advice on how to get him back when she was killed.

When Ms Black discovered the children's father was alive and in Australia, she was relieved. "I thought this was going to be a simple exercise," she said. "I thought I'd just get passports for the kids, send them to Australia and they'd be reunited with their dad. Simple."

It has been anything but.

After his wife's death, Mr Samaki pleaded with the Australian Government to allow his release so he could care for his children. But a humanitarian visa was refused and an application to bring his children to Australia on tourist visas was also knocked back recently.

The Australian Government has reportedly offered Mr Samaki $6000 to leave Australia but he has refused. "I don't want to be affected by sly politics," he told The Age from the Baxter detention centre in South Australia. He cannot return to Indonesia because he has no legal status there. Nor can he go back to Iran, where he faces persecution and probably jail. Even if he risked a return to his country of birth, Iran would not accept his children.

Meanwhile, Sarah and Haries remain in limbo. Unable to be reunited with their father, the children were put into the care of their grandparents in East Java. But their custody was later assumed by the couple Ms Black encountered in the crisis centre.

Child victims of the bombings are seen by many in Bali as cash cows - donations by welfare groups can be higher than a family's normal income.

"I still don't know the full story of how they came to be where they were," Ms Black says, "but Haries is wise way beyond his years. He knows a lot about gambling, and more comes out all the time."

The children are now in the care of Ms Black, who has a four-month-old daughter of her own. She does not know what will become of them.

They have been deeply traumatised by their experience. Haries repeatedly wakes screaming from nightmares.

Speaking from the Baxter detention centre, Mr Samaki, who paid $US2000 ($A3100) for a boat trip to Australia for a new life with his wife and children, said he was losing all hope.

"Minister Ruddock has a black heart," he said, referring to Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock. "I'm just waiting for somebody to help. I'm stuck.

"Minister Ruddock, help, understand with feelings for me and my family . . . I am asking as a father, help reunite me with my children and put me in a place where we will be safe and live a normal life."

Adelaide lawyer Danny Hyams applied in November for Mr Ruddock to use his discretion under the Migration Act to allow Mr Samaki to stay in Australia, so that his children could come and live with him. "The minister is still considering the application," Mr Hyams said.